truth.
Nineteen
Hunter and Garcia sat in silence inside Garcia’s car for a long moment. Having to break the news to somebody as vulnerable as Anita that her husband had been taken by a psychopath, that his body had been almost dissolved in an alkali bath, and that baby Lilia would never see her father again had a way of rattling even the most experienced of detectives.
At first Anita just stared at them, as if not a single word they’d said had registered. Then she started laughing. Loud, hysterical laughs, as if she’d heard the world’s funniest joke. Tears streamed down her face, but the laughter carried on. Then she told them that they had to leave because her husband was due home at any minute. She had things to do before he got back. She wanted to prepare him his favorite meal, and then he would sit and play with his daughter like he did every night. Anita was shaking as if feverish when she closed the door on them.
Hunter left without saying another word. In his career he had seen the most diverse grief reactions: a mother who sincerely believed her son had been abducted by aliens rather than accept the fact that he’d been stabbed thirty-three times simply for walking down a neighborhood wearing the wrong colors; a new doctor, fresh out of med school, who lost all memory of his young wife rather than recall the night their house was broken into by four men, who tied him up and made him watch as they showed her absolutely no mercy. When reality becomes too senseless to make sense, the human mind will sometimes create its own.
Hunter would immediately request that a city psychologist got in touch with Anita. She would need all the help she could get.
Someone from the forensics office would also visit Anita in the next day or so. They would need a mouth swab, or a hair sample from her baby daughter. Hunter and Garcia were certain the victim was Kevin Lee Parker, but protocol required positive identification. With the body’s grotesque disfigurement, Anita would never be able to identify it down at the County Coroner’s. Positive identification would have to be made by DNA analyses.
‘Shit!’ Garcia said, resting his head against the steering wheel. ‘We’re looking for another I-don’t-care-who-the-fuck-I-kill murderer.’
Hunter just looked at him.
‘You just saw the victim’s house. There’s no wealth. You met his wife and daughter – simple everyday people. OK, we have to wait for whatever the research team can dig out on Kevin Lee Parker, but does any of what we know or have seen about his life so far strike you as anything other than ordinary?’
Hunter said nothing.
‘I’ll be surprised if the team finds even a parking ticket on him. He was just a young family man trying to get by, trying to build some sort of a future for his wife and daughter before his faulty heart gave up.’ Garcia shook his head. ‘I don’t think Kevin Lee Parker became a victim because of money, or debt, or drugs, or revenge, or anything. He was just picked at random out of the general public by a sadistic maniac. It could’ve been anyone, Robert. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘You know we can’t be sure of that at this point, Carlos.’
‘Well, that’s my gut feeling, Robert. This isn’t about the victim. It’s about the killer showing off on a God power trip. Why build that torture chamber? Why call us and stream the execution live over the Internet for us to watch, as if it were a goddamn killing show? You said so yourself, the whole setup behind this is too bold, too complex – a phone call that bounces all around LA, not the world or even America, just LA, but an Internet transmission that seemed to have originated in Taiwan?’
Hunter had no reply.
‘This guy just wants to kill. Period. Who he kills makes no fucking difference to him.’
Hunter still said nothing.
‘You were right in your assessment,’ Garcia continued. ‘If we don’t stop this guy soon, Kevin Lee